Fred Provenza - Nourishment

PRAISE FOR NOURISHMENT

In Nourishment a wise observer of the land and the animals becomes transformed to learn the meaning of life. Fred Provenzas reflections on his long, fruitful career in behavior-based management of landscapes include his joy in observing the natural world around him.

Temple Grandin , author of Animals in Translation

An absolutely fascinating topic, engagingly written. Fred Provenza will wholly up-end everything you think you know about what you are supposed to eat and why. Nourishment should be the first book read by every student of nutrition.

Nicolette Hahn Niman , author of Defending Beef

Fred Provenzas Nourishment is a synergy of the essence of his lifetime of research coupled with commonsense nutritional advice to aid both animals and humans. All readers will benefit from the knowledge revealed in this book. I have long thought Dr. Provenzas work should comprise a required course in veterinary and medical schools, and Nourishment confirms that opinion.

Richard J. Holliday , DVM, holistic veterinarian; coauthor of A Holistic Vets Prescription for a Healthy Herd

Fred Provenza is a hero of mine. His deep understanding of how animals behave on the landwhy they eat what they eat, how they stay healthy, and how they teach their younghas helped generations of ranchers, farmers, wildlife managers, and university students understand and strengthen their relationships with animals in sustainable ways. We are animals, too, and in this magnificent book, Fred weaves together philosophy, nutritional science, memoir, and his humble appreciation for the natural world into an inspiring meditation on our moment on Earth.

Courtney White , author of Grass, Soil, Hope and Two Percent Solutions for the Planet

Drawing from episodes of his years of research and the cycles of life, Dr. Provenza illuminates the fascinating mechanisms by which animals innate knowledge of healthy eating is passed on to their offspring and how we humans can learn from the simplicity of animals in our midst. This engaging book provides proof that animals are not mindless eatersnor should humans be.

Hubert Karreman , VMD, author of Treating Dairy Cows Naturally

Fred Provenza has spent his career redefining the ways we understand livestock intelligence when it comes to diet. In this compelling and engaging book, he shares many of those lessons and synthesizes a wide breadth of research and knowledge to challenge some fundamental assumptions about diet, whether it be for livestock or humans.

Steve Gabriel , author of Silvopasture and coauthor of Farming the Woods

In this path-finding and paradigm-breaking book, Provenza combines a lifetimes worth of scientific work with deep empathic insight to further extend his unique contribution to healing our ailing landscapes, our animals, and the human condition. In an era when the false pathway of economic rationalism, aligned to industrial agriculture and its food systems, is poisoning the planet and ourselves, Provenza provides a vitally new holistic perspective of our species: a perspective that provides exciting solutions to our Anthropocene and human dilemmas.

Charles Massy , author of Call of the Reed Warbler

Fred Provenza has a brilliant, inquisitive, and open-minded spirit, the kind that should live within all of us. Nourishment is the result of a lifetime of observation, experimentation, and incredible insight by a master scientist. This is a book you will read, reread, dog-ear pages in, and tell your friends about. You will be blown away, as I have been. Outstanding!

Bob Budd , executive director, Wyoming Wildlife and Natural Resource Trust

Once again, Fred Provenza shows he is one of the freshest and most insightful thinkers about the role of herbivores (and omnivorous humans!) in our food and land management systems. This book is a landmark contribution.

Gary Paul Nabhan , author of Mesquite and Food from the Radical Center

Part mirror and part compass springing from a bedrock of science, Nourishment takes us on an extraordinary journey through bodies of wisdom. This book sets a new bar for how to think about the intersection of food, nature, and ourselves.

Anne Bikl , coauthor of The Hidden Half of Nature

Through Fred Provenzas eyes, a simple meal becomes a wondrous journey into the world, into our bodies, and into our deepest selves. Nourishment will change the way you eat and the way you think.

Mark Schatzker , author of Steak and The Dorito Effect

Throughout his illustrious research career, Fred Provenza has taught us how animalsmany of which we choose to eatlearn what they themselves should consume to maintain optimal health. He has now taken these lessons and applied them to the human situation in insightful and clever ways, concluding that we ignore our bodys wisdom to our nutritional detriment. But he goes further, tying his metaphysical ideas about the lives of plants, the nature of food, and the consciousness of cells to his fascinating life adventure. This book is sure to engage, educate, and provoke the reader.

Gary K. Beauchamp , director and president emeritus, Monell Chemical Senses Center

I could describe this book as simply an enlightening treatise on the philosophy of life, but that fails to do it justice. Fred Provenza uses his lifes experiences as student, rancher, fisherman, researcher, teacher, hiker, cancer patient, and retiree to illustrate vividly the fundamental principles of nutrition not only of animals (including humans) but also of plants and soil. In Nourishment Provenza also offers a rich exposition of his outstanding all-embracing views of life.

J. Michael Forbes , professor emeritus, University of Leeds; author of Voluntary Food Intake and Diet Selection of Farm Animals

Fred Provenza spent his distinguished academic career becoming a leading authority on the food habits of rangeland animals. In this thought-provoking book, he uses his deep understanding of his four-legged study subjects to cast light on our own nutritional condition in a world where we have become increasingly remotephilosophically and physicallyfrom our food supply.

Stephen J. Simpson , PhD, academic director, Charles Perkins Centre, University of Sydney

Nourishment

What Animals Can Teach Us About Rediscovering Our Nutritional Wisdom

FRED PROVENZA

C HELSEA G REEN P UBLISHING

White River Junction, Vermont

London, UK

Copyright 2018 by Frederick D. Provenza.

All rights reserved.

Illustrations copyright 2018 by Sarah Gillman.

Cover painting by Annabelle Lanfermeijer (http://www.landelijkekunst.nl).

No part of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Project Manager: Sarah Kovach

Editor: Fern Marshall Bradley

Copy Editor: Nancy N. Bailey

Proofreader: Angela Boyle

Indexer: Linda Hallinger

Designer: Melissa Jacobson

Printed in the Canada.

First printing November, 2018.

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